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The whole right, left perspective is an illusion. When are you people going to wake up?

That is so lazy intellectually. Some politicians are power hungry pathalogical liars (e.g., Issa). Some politicians are plain old cranks (e.g., Inhofe/Bachmann). Some politicians really believe in things and fight for them, and are often indistinguishable from cranks (e.g., Rand Paul). Some politicians really believe in things and fight for them (e.g., Paul Ryan).

The trick to understanding politics is sorting out the grand-standing from what people really believe in. The GOP is currently defined by hatre

I support the right to bear arms, as well as the right for a woman to have an abortion. I support the Death Penalty (in some circumstances), and I also support assistance for those that need it. I support gay marriage, and I also support the Free Market. I support the freedom OF religion, as well as the freedom FROM religion.

Strange. I don't seem to fit into either category.

People are different - politicians or no, you're going to have liars and hypocrites along with those that actually try to make the world a better place. The problem is that the actual JOB of being a politician puts you in a position to be surrounded by a toxic environment the from before you actually get elected. That kind of toxicity is tough to wash off, and the deeper you get immersed into the political culture, the harder it is to reverse course. The path of least resistance involves letting other people make decisions for you, and those people have no scruples.

Sounds like you are a moderate democrat. If you see yourself as a moderate conservative, then sure, but your congressmen represent people far to the right of you. Most democrats ignore radical liberals. (e.g., those who believe everyone should be vegetarian.)

I recently listened to the excellent History of Rome podcast, and one thing that struck home is the politics of the old Roman Republic. It would be trivial to sort many Roman politicians into left-right.

Because they actually were or because the podcaster had already done so when preparing the cast? After all, every political idea can be fitted into a left-right axis, just like any point on Earth's surface has a latitude. That does not mean it's sufficient information to capture the essence of the idea.

Bullshit. Most religious people simply cannot grasp the concept that their religion should not permeate all things.

Citation required. "Most"? Hardly. Some? Maybe. But you're now conflating conservative/right with religious/zealot, and by doing so you show a strong bias. I could also point out that some atheists believe that their religion should permeate all things. And that some muslims ditto. So, like I said, freedom FROM religion requires acknowledgement of things that are religious in nature but that call themselves something else.

And, as I said, you've confused a belief that ethics and morals are important with

True. He turned out to by a crypto conservative plant, a false flag operative operating under the guise of hope and change. He is right of Ronald Reagan on a lot of issues, much to the absolute horror of the actual liberals in this country.

I've been saying for a while now that the most effective conservative leaders are elected democrats. Obama apologizing for the IRS correctly identifying the tea party as a political group that should be taxed as a political group? I can't really see any other explanation for that other than Obama wanted to help out his friends in the Tea Party. A close second would be that everyone in the administration suffers from a weird disease where they are decent political strategists during the elections then they immediately become absolutely horrible at it in every way.

He is right of Ronald Reagan on a lot of issues, much to the absolute horror of the actual liberals in this country.

As he wrote in his book the Audacity of Hope and said over and over in many speeches in which he praised certain RR policies.

It seems that both the left and the right solely focused on the color of his skin, and projected "what he' supposed to do 'cuz he's black" on him, without ever realizing he was and has always been the most centrist Democratic candidate ever elected president.

It seems that both the left and the right solely focused on the color of his skin, and projected "what he' supposed to do 'cuz he's black" on him, without ever realizing he was and has always been the most centrist Democratic candidate ever elected president.

Anyone who ever looked at this [politicalcompass.org] already knew this. Obama is about as conservative as anything the Republicans can get into the presidential election, with a few twists thrown in that move him slightly left of the standard republican.

The fact that Obama was the most liberal politician that could get elected to the national office should tell actual leftists/socialists/liberals exactly what they're fighting against.

For the record, I'm ok with with Obama being fairly conservative. I can live with his brand of c

Dec. 16: Despite being briefed about the matter six months earlier, Lerner does not divulge the flagging of conservative groups when she and others from the IRS meet staff members of the House Ways and Means Committee to discuss the issue, according to the staff's timeline of events.

None of the claims in the linked articles are in dispute, and the Brietbart article simply recaps a local Cincinnati Fox TV reporter, who's "Rogue IRS Agent" story is a strawman, which he does not attribute to any source -- he cannot, since nobody reputable has claimed this. It's dutiful, rather mild and uninformative reporting that has a provocative headline and unsubstantiated lede, for the purpose of headline trolling, which is about all most conservative news sites are good for.

After a week of revelations about government spying on reporters and the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservatives, most voters feel “like the federal government has gotten out of control and is threatening the basic civil liberties of Americans.”

At the same time, a new Fox News poll finds disapproval of President Obama’s job performance is above 50 percent for the first time in a year, his honesty rating is at a new low and half of voters already think he’s a lame-duck.

More than two-thirds of voters -- 68 percent -- feel the government is out of control and threatening their civil liberties. About one quarter disagree (26 percent).

Nearly half of Democrats (47 percent), as well as large numbers of independents (76 percent) and Republicans (87 percent) feel Uncle Sam is taking liberties with their liberties.

Those who identify with the Tea Party movement, one of the groups targeted by the IRS, are among those most likely to say things are out of control and civil liberties are being threatened: 92 percent of Tea Partiers feel that way.

I would like to think that you value civil liberties enough that you wouldn't stand behind this sort of behavior even if it does have popular support. After all, Nixon enjoyed considerable popular support well into Watergate [uconn.edu]. What kind of government do you have when the government can select significant segments of the population to disadvantage and harass them based solely

Please expand on that, I'm curious. Is it the bringing up of topics that don't have the progressive stamp of approval? Using sources that march to a different drummer? Should we only be posting the approved truth or talking point of the day? What a strange notion in a forum post complaining about the alleged politicization of science. Isn't the truth important? Diversity of ideas? Or do we all have to think alike?

I agree. But what we're talking about here is science and scientific research.

I can understand a fiscal conservative's opinion that government has no business funding scientific research - and considering this horseshit, I would think that a liberal might side with that just for the reason of science getting politicized even more.

But when a government starts meddling with science and research because it pisses off their backers - industry - then we are headed for some serious trouble. The Bible thumpers don't scare me because, although a pain in the ass, they are easily defeated.

Industry scares me. They have the deep pockets to get their way and it's very hard to fight them.

Examples of industry screwing science over to get their way:

Cigarette industry - fought for decades that their products were safe and later, there was no proof that they were dangerous.

Automakers and every safety and pollution control system demanded. And decades ago, they fought tooth and nail to KEEP lead in gasoline. That's why it tool so many decades to get rid of it: the auto industry bullshitted the US Congress.

Fossil fuel producers and doing everything they can to misinform the public about global climate change.

I think your fix would be more reasonable if you cited examples of when liberal politicians ignored science to match their agendas.

Preferably some example where the vast majority of peer-reviewed studies support the opposite side. Like climate change, where 97% of studies conclude that climate change is real. Or evolution. As opposed to some other issue where there is much more support for either side.

I think your fix would be more reasonable if you cited examples of when liberal politicians ignored science to match their agendas.

While I generally agree that the R's pretty much ignore science, gun control is an example of where the D's ignore it.

Specifically US related data, while there isn't much, what there is, points at gun control being useless in the US for controlling gun related homicides. Areas with the highest homicide rates also tend to be the ones with the strictest gun control (see Chicago a

I don't want to get into another gun control debate, but in terms of ignoring science. If you look at the broader scope, gun control works in may other places. Australia, Japan and the UK are three countries that turned them selves around after enacting stick gun control.

So once again the R's are ignoring the data as a whole and opting to take a smaller sample, that's only ever had what I could call half assed measures and failed because they lack teeth and are repeatedly repealed because they don't work

The 1930s happened and easy interstate transport meant cross border criminal gangs taking advantage of uneven law enforcement and juristictions. Now it's today, and for some reason people have forgotten that lesson and think it's unlikely that criminals will drive for an hour to get a gun.

Surely it follows that as the most heavily armed society America would have some of the lowest violent crime rates in the western world... definitely not the case. This is the number the gun lobby always trotted out because the USA only measures aggrivated assault where just about everyone else measures ALL assault, but even using this metric the USA has been worse in recent years.

And sadly, I have serious doubts that the next election will change things around. The PCC is playing its cards well by pleasing their core voter base and just enough of the periphery to ensure a majority at the next elections. The biggest backlashes they get are from social groups that already don't vote for them, so their political calculation is that they don't matter.

To make things worse, the Liberal Party was decimated (more like nonagintaeted) in the most recent election, and then went on to pick a playboy (who is the son of one of Canada's most polarizing Prime Ministers) as their new leader. They do not have a hope of winning the next election. At present the only significant opposition party is the New Democratic Party, but their charismatic leader died right after the last election, and their new leader, while competent, is rather boring and hardly the sort of per

As much as that may or may not be true, Canadians actually elected them.

To be fair, it was more of a suicide pact by the left. They forced an election when most people were profoundly sick of being expected to vote for a new government every year or so, and were rewarded with a right-wing majority.

A large portion of that list doesn't look anti-science. Business deregulation? Firing regulatory officials for "lack of leadership"? Discontinuing a mandatory census? Rolling back environmental regulations? Withdraw from Kyoto Accord? Changes to fisheries regulations? Procedural changes for public hearings on pipeline work? And so on... These are not "anti-science" changes. They are anti-liberal, anti-environmentalist, and pro-business political moves. Think there might be some political bias by the author of this list?

They are anti-liberal, anti-environmentalist, and pro-business political moves. Think there might be some political bias by the author of this list?

Sadly, while they're doing all of those things, they're discrediting the science behind it.

They make assertions which don't match facts, and then say the scientists who have the facts have an agenda.

And you wonder why so much of the US fails in a basic understanding of science? It's because the douchebag politicians do all they can to undercut science.

Maybe if your positions aren't borne out by science, it's you who has a problem with reality? You know, like the drooling trolls who say "Intelligent Design" should be treated as an equally valid theory to Evolution, even though it's anything but.

Policy decisions can't discredit science. Science has a pretty good method of weeding out bad stuff. That said, government has to manage not just scientific facets of reality but human constructs that may or may not be grounded in science but have very real implications. If you don't understand that and that those human constructs may be more important than the raw science, then at best your policies will never "win" in the political environment. In a worse case, you could cause a drop in standard of li

the rest (like 'environmental' science) are just a political whores at best, where 'truth' is defined by number of paid 'papers', not by soundness of argument or reproducibility of experiments. No wonder it gets discarded on the side of the road now and then.

No, the groups which do that are mostly shell companies and think tanks paid by large corporations to kick out position papers which support their claims.

People are doing actual science in many domains, and large corporations and political groups try very hard to say "see, we have science too".

That's usually a lie -- the tobacco companies claimed for years smoking wasn't harmful when they knew damned well it was.

There's science, and there's shills. It's important to know which are which. If you can convince the masses that science is just what a bunch of people want you to believe, you can undermine it to the point where you can make any claims you like.

So go find me some scientific evidence for Intelligent Design, because you can't, since there's absolutely zero science behind it.

There may be a few pure science projects on the list, but they are hard to find, and should have been the bailiwick of University Researchat best, not National government paper shuffling bureaucracies that take on a life of their own.

I clicked one of the blog-troll's links at almost random. It was a hysteria filled column about how the "EVIL Conservatives (who obviously were being lead by the EVEN MORE EVIL Bush family)" were being EVIL by removing an "Environment Canada" logo and text from the weather page. The top-rated 9000 comments were all outrage, but the most recent three explained that the "Environment Canada" web page still exists and that (gasp, shock, horror) this actually helps because the weather page had been the top response when searching for "Environment Canada," and now searching for that term actually gave you what you searched for.

After reading that, the next link could've had video evidence of their hated PM firing nuclear weapons at baby seals and I still wouldn't care.

Hint: most environmental considerations come from scientific discoveries and conclusions. "Lack of leadership" is an excellent excuse to fire off people that don't align to your political views. Mandatory census is an important tool in many scientific fields to determine the state and evolution of the population. Changes to fishing regulations go against every scientific studies we've ever made. Pipeline work is being swept under the carpet so that the government can help oil producers in Alberta export their stuff more easily without bothering about public opinion or environmental concerns.

I hate to break it to you, but the Kyoto Accord is based on science, whether you like that science or not. This is exactly the point: you don't like the science, and neither do most conservatives, because it indicates that a BIG business (fossil fuel based energy) is bad. Since those businesses have a fair amount of money, the Kyoto Accord is pretty anti-fossil fuel business.

Something "based on science" isn't Science. It is something "based on science". I can be against Kyoto accord (policy) for reasons other than the "science" behind it (policy). This is something liberals cannot fathom.

Kyoto Accord has about the same amount of science behind it as does the Piltdown Man did. Remember, Piltdown man was accepted as "science" for years and many PhD in sciences were awarded to people who did their Thesis on it. Just because Science claims something doesn't mean it is true.

You're using the boilerplate approach to denying AGW by stating a known and obvious point that applies to all scientific theories. You'd have a much more effective argument if you'd actually cite a reason why you think the AGW theory is wrong.

I never said I didn't believe in or believed in AGW. What I said was that the Kyoto Accord was based on the same kind of science and Piltdown man. I suggest you google it. Kyoto was based on the flawed and flat out fabricated information coming out of the U.E.A. Doesn't mean U.E.A was wrong, it also doesn't mean they are right.

And I'm opposed to the Kyoto Treaty based on other reasons. It excuses or doesn't affect the people that are actually causing the most harm to the environment, namely many third world

I hate to break it to you, but the Kyoto Accord is based on science, whether you like that science or not. This is exactly the point: you don't like the science, and neither do most conservatives, because it indicates that a BIG business (fossil fuel based energy) is bad. Since those businesses have a fair amount of money, the Kyoto Accord is pretty anti-fossil fuel business.

Despite that fact, it is still based on valid science.

I remember the Kyoto Accord very differently then you do. The Kyoto Accord was signed by the Liberals at the end of a very unpopular Liberal term. The Liberals never made a plan of how to meet the requirements of The Kyoto Accord because it was impossible for Canada to meet it in the specified time frame. Signing it was a recognized political joke at the time.

Full disclosure: I voted Conservative for that election and Liberal for the one after.

We need to ignore people who went to school for climatology, because they are ALL out to lie to us./sarc

How about this, you show me instances where a scientist has lied for personal gain, and I will compile a list of when big business has lied for ceo/stockholder gain. Who ever has the biggest list wins.

Science is a method not an outcome and as such is amoral. "We must reduce carbon emissions in order to reverse global warming", is not a scientific statement.

You're obviously right. Similarly "you should step off the tracks before that freight train barreling along kills you" is not a scientific statement. However "if you don't step off the tracks before that freight train arrives then you will die" is a scientific statement. Many people think the recommendation to step off the tracks is obviously, if not scientifically, a reasonable recommendation under those circumstances. Some may disagree.

However "if you don't step off the tracks before that freight train arrives then you will die" is a scientific statement.

Unfortunately, climate science isn't capable of making even that statement. All it can say is that continued carbon emissions will lead to modest and gradual temperature increases. Whether those are good or bad is purely speculation at this point.

And how many of these are simple funding cuts? The economy has been in various states of suckitude over the last few years so I'd expect to see plenty of cuts in government funding. Doesn't make it an anti-science conspiracy.

Here's a very interesting movie about farmed salmon in BC and the ISA virus (an internationally reportable virus like mad cow). http://salmonconfidential.ca/ [salmonconfidential.ca]

Basically, the Canadian government, despite highly reputable testing, continues to deny that there is ISA and other viruses in the farms, muzzles the scientist who published research on the topic, and almost passed a law making it a felony to report on infections in livestock/farmed fish. All the while, native stocks of salmon plummet due to diseases that fill the narrow passageways in which the farms are located. And no, you can't just replace wild salmon with farmed salmon -- unless you're going to truck them out to the forest and dump them because even the trees get fertilized by dead fish that bears leave around after eating the eggs (and then of course there are Orcas and seals to feed etc. etc). The rivers can provide nutrients to an entire ecosystem including people -- farmed salmon destroy that but provide profit for big business. With most fishermen being small time business people -- guess which wins. http://oregonstate.edu/instruction/fw580/pdf/15.%20MDN%20riparian.pdf [oregonstate.edu]

Well, I guess I was inarticulate -- ISA is internationally reportable "like" mad cow is internationally reportable (not that it is like mad cow). The upshot is that when cattle are suffering from mad cow, you can't export the meat. When farmed salmon are suffering from ISA, you can't export the meat. Protecting exports is why the Canadian government is trying to hide it's ISA problem.

The sad thing is, if you take infected fish home and wash it before cooking, there is a possibility that ISA then ends up

It's possibly more accurate to say the Conservative government here is anti-information, or anti-data. Anti-science is just part of that.

Eliminating the mandatory long-form census has made some data entirely unusable. It went from 94% participation to somewhere in the 60% range. Some areas of the country now have no information by which to base decisions on. You can correct--to a certain extent--for discrepancies that occur in large population centres where the participation rate wasn't bad and you have good anchor data from past years, but this last census was supposed to form the basis of NEW anchor data.

Statistics is science. Information collection is critical in a country as spread out and diverse as Canada.

But again, this is just one more thing on the pile. Muzzling scientists, shutting down a world-class lakes research facility (that only cost $20 million/year to run--the Conservative government has spent twice as much on advertising about how good a job they've done with the economy, and they haven't really done a great job there), ignoring scientific advice from all quarters, etc. The list is long, and it all has the same common thread throughout it: "we don't care what the data says, and if we can make sure that nobody else sees the data, they can't accuse us of making decisions that are contrary to the data".

I'm not sure you're seeing a bias by the author as much as a list of actions by the Conservatives (which are generally anti-liberal, anti-environmentalist, and pro-business political moves).

Firing regulatory officials for "lack of leadership"?

This head of the Nuclear regulatory agency got fired over controversy that led to an important research reactor (that manufactured important medical isotopes) being shut down for a while over safety issues. The minister eventually fired the head of the agency and the government forced the reactor to restart. Overall most people felt the reactor should keep running (and I'd agree). Either way I'm not sure I'd really call it an attack on science as much as a struggle over agency independence. Looking through the article (from 2008) I found this fun little tidbit

A ministerial directive on Dec. 10 ordered the CNSC to reopen the site. The agency refused, insisting a backup safety system be installed to prevent the risk of a meltdown during an earthquake or other disaster.

Too bad she couldn't have found a job in Fukushima.

Discontinuing a mandatory census?

Stopping the collection of good scientific data in favour of some fuzzy ideological principals? Since then we've had a few provincial elections where the polls turned out to be completely inaccurate, I wouldn't be surprised if that was related.

Environmental regs are largely suggested by science, as are carbon emission regs and regs to keep fisheries healthy.

Frankly the message I get from this is they care more about the short term economic impact than the environment, and combined with their other actions in gutting research and muzzling scientists there seems to be an active effort to cripple science so that science can't contradict their policies.

Where do you think the data to do the science comes from? Fisheries and Oceans has closes dozens of data collection sites just in the Maritimes region alone. It's awfully hard to argue that industry is over fishing or that salmon farms are contaminating wild fish stocks when there's not data to back it up and scientist are under muzzle orders.

Most of the people in the Maritimes region that were "relocated" were then "work force adjusted" several months later, meaning the relocation was a temporary step to firing them. Then to claim "fishing enforcement" is the same as data collection used to support science!! Data collected in fishing surveys is used to determine how necessary services such as "fisheries enforcement" are, not the other way around.
You sir are off your rocker.

What BS. Nobody has ever been jailed for failing to fill out the long-form census. It was mandatory and there were potential fines and jailtime in place, but if you go looking, basically nobody ever runs afoul of the laws. The census people just come and talk to you and help you fill out the form.

That participation is vital. As a result of not having it be mandatory this year, we now have big chunks of data that have to be completely thrown out. Something like 40% of municipalities in Saskatchewan have no relevant data this year. It's criminal. How do you make decisions in a country without data to base it on?

There's never been a freedom problem with the census. It's a red herring that the Conservatives used to tenuously justify a move so absurd, the head statistician of Statistics Canada felt it was his moral obligation to step down in protest.

An accurate census is fundamental to any government that's interested in actually governing. Without it, all your decisions are just shots in the dark. You can't set any metrics that determine success, because you don't even know what problems you're supposed to be solving anymore.

How is it any more criminal than forcing your citizens to tell you basically everything about themselves. Just because my government wants to know where I live, what my sexual preference is, and how much money I make, does not mean that I should be legally bound to tell them. It is not like they actually make policy decisions based on the greater good or peoples opinions anyways.

Even the most basic issues in government need good data to work with. Whether you're speaking of the Environment, Economy or Health Care, you have to know where the people are, what their needs are, and what the trends are if you want any hope of doing a good job.

A one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work here. Manitoba is not BC, and BC isn't Quebec. Trying to do anything governance-wise without data is folly. Like it or not, the government DOES spend money on programs and it DOES handle a lot of problems.

They just might not get the funding taken forcefully taken from everyone's pocket book to fund their research.

Oh boy, you're one of those types that think taxes are equivalent to jackboot thugs raping your daughter. This is going to go all sorts of fun places.

But no, it IS a war on science. The Canadian government has a lot of ways they can decide what to do. They can get a public vote, they can go with their gut, or they can ask an expert. You know, like a scientist. If they decide to get rid of that portion of their organization it's like they're waging war on that fundamental. If they, somehow, worked towards ignoring everything the populace wanted them to do, we'd say they were waging a war on democracy.It's like if a programming firm decided to axe their QA department, you could say they "waged a war on testing".

What about the mandatory long form census. Do you wonder where that data comes from? From threats and violence against citizens.

How can you sit there and hyperbole like this and claim it's not a war on science? Are you the chosen one who is solely allowed to exaggerate?Listen, there's this form, you have to fill it out. Do your civic duty otherwise there is a fine. Yeah, yeah, paperwork is a pain in the ass, but it's not the end of the world. And it's not jackboot Nazi thugs breaking down your door.

Considering scientists have become advocates of specific policies and ideologies instead of simply doing research, I'm in favor of defunding them as well. If all scientists did was provide the data on things like the fishery or global warming, more power to them. The moment they come in support of carbon taxes or any kind of policy, they are not doing science any longer.

When the science is screaming that the boss is screwing over generation of fishers just to get a couple of tax dollars, and it's your job to go do that science, you'd become an advocate too.

The longer you live in old age, the greater healthcare costs.

Scientists don't like to point that out because they have souls. You're literally suggesting we should let people die from health complications when they're young. Because it's expensive to take care of them in old age. Whoa dude. Whoa.

This is actually kind of an issue. The "hard truths" have a hard time getting publication and circulation because people, well, don't want to be evil. But since we're talking about policy here, I'm actually ok with the darker facts of life not being implemented. I mean, the euthanasia/eugenics/forced-sterilization crowd don't need much encouragement before they go all crazy. They're kinda already there.

Scientists being on the government payroll and being involved in politics has ruined any notion of objective science.

As opposed to being on the corporate payroll?Or do you have unyielding faith in the scientists of academia?Good science ain't cheap, and someone has to pay. Or you can live in ignorance (which is often more expensive).

They closed the Kitsilano Coast Guard station which provided coverage on Vancouver harbour and English Bay, handling a few hundred distress calls a year. The nearest active station is Sea Island, which has slowed response by about half an hour. Lives will eventually be lost because of the closure of this "downtown" coast guard station.

This is just a liberal laundry list masquerading as an 'objective' assessment of the conservative government's attitude toward science.What is actually happening here is called "balancing the budget". The funding of many programs have been cut --from sports to science. Why scientists feel their programs should be immune to budget cuts when governments the globe over are practicing austerity is a mystery.

Balancing the budget? LOL! This government has blown the hole in the budget that Canada had never seen in its entire history. The federal debt has skyrocketed under this regime while the funds to provinces were cut. The 'tax and spend' Liberals maintained balanced budgets for years and years until these clowns grabbed a hold of the steering wheel. Their first stupid move was cutting the GST by two percentage points just before the debt crisis hit. As for their approach to science they had a creationist as a minister of science; enough said.

While I'm no great fan of Harper, that might have something to do with being in a global depression where every government is trying to borrow and spend their way out. Take a look at how much the national debt has exploded in other Western nations.

after public funds. The author uses the word science, but in reality what this boils down to is a political viewpoint not popular with the current politicians controlling the purse strings. I'm sick of seeing the removal of public funding for something being called a "war".

Ever been in an ICU recently? All that remote monitoring technology was "government science" developed for space travel. This internet? Yup, More government science money. Use a microwave oven? Yup, government money!

Basic science research is needed to develop ideas and test theories that could later be developed into mass use products!

The conservatives in power at the federal level in Canada have been figuratively rounding up all the intellectuals, scientists, educators, and scholars who do not toe the line. It is disgraceful and eerily familiar to historians, who BTW are about to undergo a government investigation of how Canadian history is to be taught [ottawacitizen.com] since the conservatives do not much recognize anything but their own mythology.

" It will be another two years before Canadians have the chance to go to the polls, but how much more damage will be done in the meantime?"

This statement assumes that canadians will not re elect the conservatives again. Unfortunately, most of my fellow countrymen only care about one thing - the economy. Witness the recent election in BC where the BCliberals (really conservatives, just liberal by name) were super corrupt (head of party resigned in shame) and most people agree are doing a bad job, were re-elected. Why? They ran on the platform of creating more industry jobs, ignoring the effects of climate change, and selling off resources to china which they say will make us and our children rich.

Unless the housing market collapses, and takes the broader economy with it, before the next election, the conservatives will most likely win again. There are many theories as to why this is, but the fact is people have been led to believe that the government having closer ties to business equals a better economy. Thanks in no small part to the shit ton of propaganda (economic action plan = propping up construction sector) that reinforces this belief and glosses over reality. Science is facts, and the conservatives hate fact based policy. They base policy on ideology and authoritarianism. Its stupid and backwards, but thats been the state of canada since 2006.

Well, if you own a fishery, it's not really in your interest to kill all the fish, is it? That would destroy your source of income. Rather it makes more sense to ensure you will have fish for a long time to come. Problems arise when:
a) tragedy of the commons - nobody owns the fishery, thus nobody is responsible, thus it's in each person's best interest to take as much as they can from the fishery, and then it gets destroyed, or
b) the people who own the fishery are incompetent.
Ideally there would be a w

Example#1This governments plan is to "solve crime" with a "hard on crime" agenda that is being acknowledged in Texas as not being the correct solution. The government also claims to be fiscally responsible.

So if you claim to be fiscally responsible yet want to setup and plan that is expensive and has been proven not to work you must deny the science.

The Harper Government has many many plans that ran counter to science. They slashed the census program which gathered data that was used for planning by all levels of govenment. Why they claimed it was because people complained, on file about 2 complaints in 15 years. Really it was if you want to throw money at pet projects you don't have to validate it against actual facts if the facts don't exists.

So yes this is a deliberate attack on science and it is required because they want to "govern from the gut".In Canada our Government is Psychotic, and the general question is why have people lost faith in government? Well is because the government operates on faith and not facts.

In case you are wondering who SNC-Lavalin is, Google them and see how many scandals they have been in the last few years, most of them to do with corruption and governments.

Ironically some of the scandals were in India, and guess where we sold most of our Candu reactors over the years.... India!

Anyway this isn't about Lavalin, its about Harper basically dumping our national atomic R&D. Remember Chalk River and the international shortage of radiological isotopes for medical use because it had to shut down? Yeah we kept the liability of that, but are not doing any research or design as to how to replace those 50+ year old facilities.

And on the tinfoil hat side of things: Despite what all the touchy feelies might think, we need atomic energy for our electric grids. Guess what the only replacement is for those things? Solar, wind, puppies, and positive thinking? Nope. Oil and Gas. Funny that. Alberta should like that.